The Lucasville Uprising was a rebellion against oppressive and racist policies at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility (SOCF) in Lucasville, OH. Nine inmates and one guard died during the uprising in April of 1993. Today, many people are serving time or condemned to death by the state of Ohio in relation to the uprising. We demand amnesty for all of these inmates. The conditions at SOCF were (and still are) intolerable and unconscionable.

Sunday, March 4, 2018

Organizing for the 25th Anniversary of the Lucasville Uprising

Twenty-Five
years after the longest prison uprising in which people died, the full
story has not been told. April 11, 2018 will be the 25th Anniversary of
the Lucasville Uprising, a defining event in the history of criminal
justice and prison systems in Ohio and the United States.

Lucasville
stands out from other prison uprisings in many ways that deserve
greater examination. The uprising claimed 10 lives over 11 days and
ended in a negotiated surrender, the terms of which the State of Ohio
refused to honor by targeting those who negotiated with them during the
uprising.

We have distributed two documents, assembled by
Staughton and Alice Lynd, esteemed labor lawyer historians from
Youngstown, Ohio. The first describes the uprising and subsequent
prosecutions in greater detail, exposing the state's behavior during the
uprising, and extensive prosecutorial misconduct in the trials
following it.

The second is a list of people willing to be interviewed for the 25th anniversary of the uprising. These contacts include: - Niki Schwartz, who Ohio brought in to negotiate the peaceful surrender

- Defense attorneys from the trials- Prisoner survivors, including those on death row, those still in prison, and those who have been released.- Activists, film-makers and organizers.

Five
men have been condemned to death and many more to long sentences served
almost entirely in solitary confinement at the Ohio State Penitentiary,
a supermax prison built in the wake of the uprising. These prisoners
have been influential writers, activists and organizers beyond their own
cases, and despite their very restrictive conditions of confinement and
isolation.

Their 2011 Hunger Strike partially
inspired the interracial solidarity of the Pelican Bay Hunger Strikes,
which expanded to include over 30,000 prisoners. Siddique Abdullah
Hasan, one of the death row survivors, was a lead organizer of the
September 9, 2016 national prison strike and protest, the largest
prisoner-led protest in history.

The impact and
historical resonance of the Lucasville Uprising is still felt in Ohio
and beyond 25 years later. The consequences remain dire, and the story
remains largely untold. Please review these materials and consider
covering the 25th Anniversary of the Lucasville Uprising.